>>93225236
Wasn't Agents of Edgewatch horrifically unbalanced? How'd it make it to number 9?

What's the difference between original kingmaker and 2e one?

>>93225236
Having never played one of these things, just how railroady are they? I mean, I know I'm asking a bunch of plot train fans this, but are some of these "the guy lives no matter what because it's not his scene to die yet" versus "if the players pull off X, then they make an important difference and you'll have to change Y and Z?"

I've always been kind of curious as to how these unfold and what scope the PCs have to do unpredictable or uncalled-for things. Or is it more about the players being surprised and the cool moments that occur within expected, generally inevitable scenes?

>>93225505
Weird question
Such things always depend on gm

>>93225236
Why does some random spic's opinion matter? And there aren't that many 2e APs anyway.

>>93225505
Usually they'll have notes like "if NPC survives or gets away he shows up again at point X"
The most railroady thing is usually that you need to care about certain npcs. They're your plothooks and carrot on a stick often and if your players are all chaotic or evil and don't care about npcs you'll quickly find poor motivation to keep the story going

>>93225236
Do any of these force the PCs to die against the metaplot villain sue with zero chance of actual victory because "TEH SETTING IS LE MAIN CHARACTER NOT YOU" bullshit? One of the 1e APs did that. Retarded.

>>93225236
These listicle faggots call crafting in 5.5e/D&Done a "brand new feature." They have no idea what the fuck they're talking about.

>>93227660
what are you talking about, schizo

>>93227709
>schizo
I would've explained calmly if you didn't add this part you retarded fucking shill. Tyrant's Grasp, moron. Still trying to cope that it's genius writing instead of a metaplot railroad? Dumbass.

>>93227746
You really need to take your meds

>>93227760
>NO THE PCS HAVE TO DIE TO THIS SUPER STRONG SUPER AWESOME VILLAIN THEY JUST HAVE TO OKAY ISN'T TAR-BAPHON SO FUCKING AWESOME?!
Fuck off, faggot.

>>93227786
>>93227746
>>93227660
Why are you getting mad about something that doesn't exist?

>>93225505
>just how railroady are they?
There's not one single answer. Some are basically just a campaign setting where the players do what they want and things happen on a clock as time goes on, like Kingmaker where you're building a kingdom in the Stolen Lands while an ancient Fey curse tries to destroy it. Others have much more of a "main plot" and require buy-in to be along for the ride, like Strange Aeons where you wake up as an amnesiac in an insane asylum and try to track down the guy you used to work for before you lost your memories.
Sometimes the degree of railroad changes from one book to another. The APs aren't one big book like Curse of Strand in 5e, they're 4-6 standalone books that tie into one another, so you can also simply use one book and then segue into a homebrew game. The first book of Carrion Crown is cleansing a haunted prison in a superstitious and unfriendly town, you can transition to Book 2 where you go to the city for a big trial for Frankenstein's monster but don't *have* to.

The 2E APs are pretty much universally worse and lower quality than 1E ones though, which is why the conversions of 1e books to 2e are so popular. Extinction Curse, Age of Ashes, and Agents of Edge watch are hot garbage, just play Kingmaker or Rise of the Runelords

>>93227920
Why are you pretending Tyrant's Grasp doesn't exist? Seriously. What's your angle here, shill? If it's so fucking genius to kill off the PCs to prop up your faggy metaplot villain, shouldn't you be proud of it instead of throwing it into the memoryhole? Or are you admitting it's fucking retarded?

>>93227936
Now talk about Tyrant's Grasp.

>>93227920
it's worse, he's mad about adventure path not being mythic adventure and not having massive plot armor for player characters, and instead treating them as ordinal adventurers

>>93227978
>forced to all die to be a minor nuisance to MUH TAR-BAPHON
>not even sacrificing yourself to beat him just slightly delaying his macguffin
>can we just kill him instead? UHHH NO YOU CAN'T HE'S A SUPER MEGA ULTRA LICH HE'LL JUST REGENERATE FROM HIS PHYLACTERY
>can we just destroy his phylactery instead? UHHH NO YOU CAN'T NOT EVEN THE GODS KNOW WHERE IT IS SO YOU CAN'T EVEN FIND IT DON'T EVEN TRY
>why are we even here? TO WITNESS THE HECKIN EPIC METAPLOT RETURN OF LE WHISPERING TYRANT NOW GO SACRIFICE YOURSELVES AND IF YOU'RE LUCKY YOU'LL GET A MARVEL MOVIE CUTSCENE DEATH
Okay

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>>93227978
>not having massive plot armor for player characters, and instead treating them as ordinal adventurers
red flag desu

>>93227978
If the PCs aren't the main characters of your campaign, then your campaign is trash. Sorry, bro. I don't make the rules, and neither do you.

>>93225236
Which one has the level 17 demigod street thugs and level 18 local jail warden?

>>93225236
I really like that post apocalyptic one from a decade or so ago.

>>93225236
A lot of this thread seems to have never played a game ever.

>>93225236
>Adventure Paths ranked
Oh?
>2e
Oh.

>>93227978
No, he's mad about the default ending of Tyrant's Grasp being a railroaded cutscene where the entire party does and has their souls permanently destroyed so they can't even pass onto the afterlife, just to mildly inconvenience an epic level lich by breaking one of his favorite toys. But he's still a level 26 epic lich with ten mythic ranks, you don't actually damage the core of his strength, you don't break his phylactery or anything since he's deemed too important for the meta plot.

It's a horrible adventure path and is basically single-handedly responsible for a good amount of the resentment towards 2nd edition that 1e fans held for years, as the "last hurrah" AP ended up being a railroaded anticlimax where after you beat the boss you lose in a cutscene like some shitty JRPG.

>>93228337
>Which one has the level 17 demigod street thugs and level 18 local jail warden?
Agents of Edgewatch, the most retarded AP ever written where it's more clear than ever that forcing giant six-book 1-20 APs even when it doesn't fit the scenario at hand is retarded. Literal thugs and muggers who can beat an adult dragon to death with their bare hands hassling tourists for cash during a World's Fair thing you're a mall cop for.

>>93225236
where the FUCK is wrath of the righteous?

>>93225505
Incredibly. If you read a review on any one of them, all of them will say stuff like "Oh it's railroady, oh the module isn't built for player agency, oh if the story beats aren't done it's unwinnable" and so on.

What kind of a fucking smoothbrain needs a module anyway?

>>93227760
kys paizo shill cunt i hope your mother kicks you out of your house

>>93232241
Are you genuinely retarded? Like sub-80 IQ?

>>93232200
No need to samefag
Only you think that villain lich bringing his phylactery out from hiden place for party to destroy would be a good writing

>>93232241
What is wrong with you retard
>what game
Pathfinder you dumb nigger

>>93232305
>>93232318

Holy shit he's so retarded the tranny jannies actually deleted his retardation.

>>93227936
Thanks for the answer.

Any opinion as to why the 2nd ed ones are all worse? Was there a big turnover in the Pathfinder design studio or something?

Abomination vaults has to be one of the most overrated adventures of all time. I played it during halloween time and the only memorable thing was there was some kind of contract writing devil. Okay its a megadungeon so maybe fists of the ruby phoenix runs better? I have run one session and it was a nightmare to gm. It kept referencing a hex map on the “inside cover” that didnt exist. The location of the feather mcguffins needed to proceed are in the fine print. And there are haunts that require you to have expert in some gay skill or else you are just fucked. Jesus christ im just going back to osr.

>>93232488
>the only memorable thing was there was some kind of contract writing devil
He's not interesting or well written. He's watching the PCs progress and really wants to talk to them and offer a deal. But for some reason he just sits in a locked room he can leave at any time and waits for you to kill all his generals and find the five keys to said room. Then he just tells you you have to either kill him or some other asshole to proceed to the game's next level. And that's it.
Trash adventure through and through.

>>93232711
I dont even fully remember what his deal was, which speaks to the whole adventure when i said he was the most memorable thing. This is only because its the few points in the entire adventure where the player gets to make any kind of social decision. I also remember adding some GM spice to him beyond what the book had because there was at least the groundwork for something interesting. The more i think about it i remember the final boss being extremely underwhelming so I homebrewed a whole escape the collapsing dungeon sequence that the playerd enjoyed more than anything actually written in the book.
Someone please tell me fists of the ruby phoenix gets better. We like yugioh and dragonball so it seemed like a no brainer but fuck was that ch. 1 dungeon crawl a buzzkill after i hyped up duelist island dbz tournament.

>>93232963
If you wanted pure tournament, you should have run "The Ruby Phoenix Tournament" adventure with your friends instead
Short module, but I liked how you could use already pre-made interactions like if your players revealing their skills and strengths early, when others contestants checking everyone else during social phases, to give them penalties during the actual tournament phases

>>93233070
Oh, but I don't think it has 2e version though
In case if that's will be a problem

>>93232415
NTA, but pretty much. After their main writer - James Jacobs - left, you could really feel the change in quality and tone. Although, personally and honestly, some of the 1e APs weren't very good - ranging from meh to disappointing, starting with Shattered Star: which could've and SHOULD'VE been six different APs culminating in a epic seventh that took characters from the previous campaigns into the epic levels. It could've been the grand, final adventure featuring their original setting focus, Varisia.

>>93225236
Season of Ghosts should honestly be higher up.

>>93233380
I thought it was meh and disappointing until you start "negotiating" with spiders

>>93225416
Kingmaker 2e uses Pathfinder 2e

>>93232415
Not him but as someone who has read through every 1e AP and played a number of them:
A lot of 1e APs kept themselves bound to a specific location/region in the world which kept themeing tight. Legacy of Fire was the genie Arabian nights AP, mummy's mask was the Egyptian AP. APs like Hells Rebels and Curse of the Crimson Throne are centered around one city alone and a handful of nearby locations. It let's pseudo sandbox elements slot in better and prevents it from feeling like a mindless romp
2e APs, especially the full 6 book ones, skew the other way. There is a lot more travelling and more collect X macguffin to go to next level. It's a lot harder to ignore the god awful kitchen sink golarian setting when they throw it all at you.
Bloodlords at least didn't do this, I think. I haven't read it.
Second is there is a pretty obvious tonal shift which has been plaguing fantasy for a while now. More cutesy wacky random xD characters or obvious writer self insert Mary Sue characters who will always be the smartest person in the room

>>93225236
So who is this guy and on what basis does he make this ranking?

>>93234861
>Legacy of Fire was the genie Arabian nights AP,
It took you through like 3 different regions...

>>93235430
those three regions were not!Arabia, a magical country contained in a tapestry, and the City of Brass in the plane of fire
with suggested optional content for reestablishing the trade route to not! Egypt
sounds pretty fucking arabian nights

>>93235430
All of which were clear rips on Arabian Nights
Arabian nights demiplane is still Arabian nights.
City of Brass is super heavy genie land

>Iomedea kills you if you don't fluff her hog by TOOTing

>Captain Flahnerty kidnaps your character and has his way with you with you explicitly being unable to do anything about it

Anyone who uses a module is a fucking imbecile who shouldn't be allowed to play TTRPGs.

>>93236201
are you really using the dumbest part of the worst pf1 ap as your baseline metric?

>>93236201
Maybe you should run modules you are trying to talk about
Iomedae literally can't kill players with tooting

>>93236216
Feels like almost every ap has a really awful part

>jade regent caravan rules
>serpent skull after you reach the city
>return of the runelords whatever the fuck
>second darkness is all awful parts
>giantslayer every enemy is easy as fuck
>tyrant's grasp lol

Of course everyone only ever played rise of the runelords and crimson throne and maybe carrion crown, so nobody will have an informed opinion about all APs.

>>93236201
>noooo, my super edgy character wants to spite a literal god right in her face without suffering consequences!
Lmao

>>93236309
Skulls and Shackles starts the entire party off as chastity cage gooners forced to do chores and endure abuse for hours of play in real time

>>93236309
Doesn't Giantslayer start with hordes of Orcs who effectively have three times the HP they should have because of Ferocity?

>>93236366
>D&/d/

>>93236366
I forgot about that. It also has ship rules so bad that you should just ignore sea combat.

This reminds me that the Council of Thieves plot happens almost entirely off-screen without player input.

>>93236397
Yes, then it becomes giantkin that can be solo'd by a single wizard or cleric.

>>93236402
There's a lot of weird thinly veiled coomer stuff in the APs. No joke.

>>93236414
So it's like, super steep ladder to get to long, relaxing water slide?

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>>93236437
A super steep ladder to get to this.

>>93232200
That does sound pretty dumb. If only >>93227660 had explained what he meant calmly and clearly, as you did.

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>>93232315
So why write a module about an indestructible villain who you want to use to advance the metaplot and punish the players with the obliteration of their characters for playing the module?

>>93236311
>Iomadea's top minion is dead as hell unless someone saves them
>The PCs are literally the only people alive who have the ability to save them
>The PCs have spent the last four entire books fighting against the demon incursion from the Worldwound in spite of being generally disrespected by every single authority figure they've spoken to
>They have already likely displayed every single virtue and more anyone could possibly look for in a hero
>Moreover, most of them probably don't actually worship Iomedae
>Instead of just being honest and saying something like "Hey, my guy got kidnapped and I need your help to get him back. Please help me. I am obviously going to you because if I could do this myself, I probably would." she kidnaps them like a retard and browbeats them into a stupid game show to see if they have the privilege of doing her job for her while acting as if they already work for her
What exactly was her plan if they said no? What if this interaction thoroughly puts them off from ever interacting with the gods again and they just leave to go do their own thing? Her mans would've died and it would've been pretty much entirely her fault because all she had to do for her mans to not die was just not behave like a monster for five fucking minutes. I work with people with cognitive and developmental disabilities for a living and most of the tards I wrangle are at least capable of doing that, but this is apparently just not within the capacity of a god. What was the Lawful Good paladin goddess's plan for if being a massive cunt to the people she is asking for help didn't work out in her favor?

>>93236700
>That does sound pretty dumb
Not really
Considering that alternative he wants is literally killing biggest evil in the world with just 20lvl party and zero time for preparation. Taunting him into selfsuicide and cockblocking him from becoming god is actually a pretty damn good deal

>>93236780
>What exactly was her plan if they said no
See>>93236242
It actually covers this situation too

>>93236780
It was just paltry damage in the draft. It was changed because one of the writers is of the “chaotic good is the only kind of good” people.

>>93236813
No. I've read the book. It does not answer this question. So, again, what is her backup plan for if the people she is entreating for aid deny it to her on the basis that she doesn't deserve it and they really have other shit to do for people who aren't assholes? To whom is she going to turn if this behavior causes the PCs to abandon her?

>>93236878
>checking if person is up for the job is being asshole now

>>93236783
>forced lose video game cutscene ending isn't dumb
lol
>but you're against THE BIG BAD (that no one who actually plays the game cares about)
No reason the PCs should die, why not let them escape having foiled THE BIG BAD plan? Why railroad into having their literal souls destroyed
>because BIG BAD
why write an adventure about THE BIG BAD then?

>>93236931
One, the PCs are, at this point, on book 5 of an AP that has consistently seen them challenge (in-universe) impossible odds and come out on top time and time again. Surely, a god's divine insight would let them see that the PCs have established their bona fides multiple times over. Baphomet's Prank Palace is not really a significant uptick in intensity from what they've already had to put up with, especially given that they've already been in and out of a different abyssal demigod's domain no worse for wear once by this point.

Two, this is not a job interview. The PCs do not go to her. She could've just as easily sent an envoy to tell them a goddess is very much interested in meeting the people who scammed Nocticula in the Abyssal Pleasuredome and seeing if they maybe want to help her with a problem she's been having, and if said envoy mentioned that there would be trials to surmount, then fine. Everyone would be on the same page and at least in that instance the PCs signed up for this. But that isn't what happens. She plucks them away from whatever they were doing at the time, demands their aid and then pretends she's doing them a favor by letting them help her. That is not how civilized people ask someone for help.

>>93233081
James Jacobs left? Why? Pathfinder was his baby.

>>93237147
Creative differences

I skipped checking out Tyrant's Grasp because I didn't like the premise and holy shit was that the right call. Paizo's got balls to go full "rocks fall, everyone dies, now buy the new edition" for the last AP.

>>93236366
Yeah book1 of Skull and Shackles is easily the worst thing I've read

It is literally supposed to be like 28 days of skill checks and then get beaten up if you fail
If you try to fight back before the right time when all the high level (like 17 or something) characters are gone you're obviously getting 1 shot

>>93236783
How about just not making adventure paths involving antagonists you'ee not allowed to win, anon? Or at least letting the OCs take their partial win and, you know, go home with that achievement?

>>93236931
>>checking if person is up for the job is being asshole now
Kidnapping people to your divine realm and torturing them and maiming them for the rest of their lives if they tell you to fuck off after said kidnapping is being an asshole, yes. Especially when she refuses to use this power to kidnap people and permanently maim them such that you need divine intervention to fix it against any of the powerful demons and mortal cultists.

She's not your fucking boss or anything, and in fact you could have an LE party in service to fucking Asmodeus or whatever who despise Demons because they're Chaotic and Hell is peak Lawtism, why the fuck would a neutral or evil party or even individual characters respect this bitch who demands you answer literal trivia questions about her backstory on threat of torture and death and blinding you?

The encounter is actually so poorly written that many GMs had issues where PCs assumed it MUST be a trick that the Demons are pulling, that there's no way a Lawful Good Paladin Goddess could be so fucking dumb, and they straight up attacked her since the scenario is so nonsensical and suspect and only makes sense in the context of like Baphomet secretly Mazing the party and putting them in an illusion (which is probably a better way to run it, and then have the real Iomedae show up and help them once the fake has been dealt with)

Why didn't Seven Dooms make it into the list? Having your party of useful idiots bumble their way into almost opening then preventing said opening of a second Worldwound was pretty entertaining.

>>93236366

My group really enjoyed Skulls & Shackles, though I translated it into another system (WFRP) and did quite a bit of adjusting to it.

They enjoyed Kingmaker and War for the Crown, too.

>>93236931
Still not an answer.

>>93237192
Was he the one who left and started publishing third party shit for the game he has developer credit on because of how Paizo pays and treats their employees like shit?

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>>93240719
>They enjoy the modules if you don't use shitty rules and change the bad parts
Really?

>>93241033

News flash, that's every game and published scenario

>>93241097
I know.

>>93240786
>Was he the one who left and started publishing third party shit for the game he has developer credit on because of how Paizo pays and treats their employees like shit?
no that's mark seifter

>>93234861
>More cutesy wacky random xD characters or obvious writer self insert Mary Sue characters who will always be the smartest person in the room
I thought Shensen was in 1e

>>93234861
>or obvious writer self insert Mary Sue characters who will always be the smartest person in the room
Can't name a single one in last two years

>>93225505
Are there more than 10 of them for 2e, even?

Abomination Vaults was all right, but it suffers terribly from being a megadungeon without wandering monsters as written. The threat of the lighthouse is nebulous and not particularly pressuring and the party's only real limit on their dungeon crawl is encumbrance.

>>93249559
Sounds like classic megadungeon, literally type of adventure /tg/ loves the most

>>93249574
No, the classic would not, as written, let you go jack off for an hour to heal up before walking into the next room. You'd have a wandering monster at least forcing you to think about where you sit.

Also will-o-wisps fucking SUCK in PF2e and if I run Vaults again I would rewrite it slightly to replace them with another monster family.

>>93249581
Suck as in "boring and unpleasant", or suck as in "will probably kill the party without really trying"?